DATE=10/5/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA / U-S ARMS  (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-254677
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:


INTRO:  Russia has accused the United States of 
violating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty by 
testing a missile designed to shoot down long range 
strategic weapons.  V-O-A's Peter Heinlein in Moscow 
reports Russian officials are threatening to withdraw 
from all disarmament treaties if the United States 
goes ahead with development of the new missile defense 
system.

TEXT:  Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir 
Rakhmanin  (Tuesday)  denounced the successful test of 
the proposed U-S missile defense system.  He told 
reporters such tests undermine the A-B-M treaty, 
considered a cornerstone of the disarmament process.

In last Saturday's test, an anti-missile warhead 
launched from from the Marshall Islands intercepted 
and destroyed a Minuteman intercontinental ballistic 
missile fired from California, nearly seven-thousand 
kilometers away.

The test heightened Russian concerns that the United 
States might develop a defense that would neutralize 
Russia's nuclear strike capability, upsetting the 
strategic balance of forces because Russia's 
impoverished government could  not  afford to keep 
pace.

U-S officials have tried to calm Russian fears, saying 
the proposed system would be designed to protect only 
against a small-scale nuclear strike by terrorists or 
a rogue state, and would  not  be effective against an 
all-out Russian nuclear attack.

A recent U-S intelligence report concluded that during 
the next 15 years, the threat to the United States of 
a long-range ballistic missile attack is most likely 
from Russia, China, and North Korea, probably from 
Iran, and possibly from Iraq.

But Russian defense ministry officials discounted that 
assessment.  The head of the ministry's international 
cooperation department, Leonid Ivashov, accused the 
United States of deliberately inventing new threats to 
justify construction of the missile defense system.  
In an interview with the Interfax news agency, General 
Ivashov charged that the only real reason for 
developing the system was to leave Russia at a 
disadvantage. (Signed)

NEB/PFH/JWH/JP




05-Oct-1999 13:13 PM EDT (05-Oct-1999 1713 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.